Accessibility Links

Chocolate sprouts point way to online success story

Edward Curwen

December 28 2015, 12:01am, The Times

Simon Belsham, with the founders Sophie Cornish, left, and Holly Tucker, said sales had jumped

It is a problem familiar to parents everywhere: how to get the kids — or, indeed, many adults — to eat Brussels sprouts. It appears that notonthehighstreet.com found an answer, of sorts, this Christmas.

The online shop window for thousands of small businesses increased its pre-Christmas sales by 25 per cent thanks in no small part to a range of chocolate Brussels sprouts. It sold 230,000 of them, confections that may have looked like the seasonal veg but were, in fact, 100 per cent chocolate.

There was more to notonthehighstreet’s sweet success, of course: the site sold gifts to more than a million customers in the four weeks before Christmas Eve. Sales in its core home and garden division were up by a third, with…

Want to read more?

Subscribe now and get unlimited digital access on web and our smartphone and tablet apps, free for your first month.